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Friday, March 7, 2014

All sorts of drama....but it starts an important conversation

Last week, this article was published online and immediately it created a firestorm in the dance community. It argues that "white" dancers have no right to be doing any form of middle eastern dance. Touchy subject, but it brings to the forefront topics that are important to consider when learning a dance form from another culture. As several people have mentioned in online discussions, is it cultural appropriation or cultural integration? Your decision to make

A few responses to this argument
http://www.autumnward.blogspot.com/ - the second half of this article really deals with the issues at hand

http://bdpaladin.com/2014/03/06/im-a-white-woman-and-i-belly-dance/

And some thoughts from someone outside the danceworld http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/06/what-would-salon-think-of-an-article-called-why-i-cant-stand-asian-musicians-who-play-beethoven/

And a similar argument from several years ago that some of the above blogs reference http://www.uccnrs.ucsb.edu/sites/www.uccnrs.ucsb.edu/files/publications/American%20Quarterly%2060.2%20-%20Belly%20Dancing.pdf

Two fascinating videos

"Lauren of Arabia" by Karim Nagi

More about Karim http://www.karimnagi.com/

Syracuse lecture by Donna Meija - she dances at about 3:30 and starts speaking at about 1 hour into the video